Anti-drone protest joined by thousands

Supporters of the anti-drone protest give a welcome to Imran Khan in Mianwali

Imran Khan's anti-drone cavalcade is now well under way and has just reached Mianwali, his home town. His supporters say that the hundreds of vehicles that started off from Islamabad have now turned into a column that is 11km long. Still unclear whether or not the protesters, who include a number of Westerners, will be allowed to cross into the tribal territories.

Imran Khan's car on the cavalcade

The Pakistan Taliban has issued a statement saying it will not offer protection to the protesters and condemning Khan and all politicians in Pakistan.
If you want to follow the cavalcade on twitter, the hashtag is #PTIPeaceMarch. Khan is now in the process of pulling off a major political coup.
Update: Imran Khan tweeted as he reached DI Khan. Tail of the convoy more than half an hour behind him.

Anti-drone march to be halted - political agent

Newspapers in Pakistan are reporting that the anti-drone march organised by Imran Khan's PTI party will not be allowed to cross into the tribal territories. The Express Tribune today quoted the political agent for South Waziristan saying that the security situation was not good enough to host such an event. It added that the march, due to start tomorrow (Sat) will be halted on the Chashma-DI Khan bridge close to the border with the tribal territories.
Yesterday in Islamabad Imran Khan held a press conference saying that Pakistan's president would be responsible if anything went wrong on the march. He was joined by a number of Westerners including Clive Stafford Smith of Reprieve, Tony Blair's sister-in-law - and convert to Islam - Lauren Booth and US peace campaigners including Ann Wright.

Lauren Booth speaking on Geo TV yesterday

Also in Islamabad yesterday was a Russian delegation headed by Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who made a point of criticising American policy on drone strikes in Pakistan. "It is not right to violate the sovereignty and integrity of any state," said Mr Lavrov, who clearly has a very short memory.

Peace activists denied access to Pakistan march

UK Peace activist and filmmaker Carol Grayson has been denied a visa to take part in a peace march in Pakistan aimed at highlighting the use of drones by the US military.
Grayson and another filmmaker, Yacine Helali, were invited to take part in the protest by Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan, whose Tehreek-e-Insaf party (PTI) is organising the motorcade to South Waziristan later this week.
Grayson told the Lahore Times: “Officially I am being told no one can guarantee my security, but surely that is the case for Pakistanis also. They have to live with risks every day, they have no choice. I am told that Waziristan is a “no-go” area and that there is a lengthy process and many hurdles to overcome if you want to film a documentary as we do. I understand this would be under the eye of a government “minder”. This may put people off from being interviewed. I think that there are other reasons, the fact that PTI have invited me to participate in the peace march and are gaining significant support in the run up to the elections. That might be threatening for some who fear change in Pakistan. I have also nurtured strong contacts in the Tribal Areas; there is mutual respect and support for one another as human beings trying to make a difference. These people are my friends; I am not a native person. I have spent time trying to understand the politics of the region; it is not so easy to pull the wool over my eyes. I have a good idea what is happening on the ground and have excellent sources for information that continue to enlighten and educate me.”
In a statement the PTI "condemned this act of stopping the international media to come to Pakistan for a cause which is in the interest of Pakistan,”.
However, a delegation of 30 US activists and parents of US Army soldiers has arrived in Islamabad, where they plan to join the march and rally which Imran Khan has predicted will involve up to 100,000 people. Ann Wright, a retired US Army colonel and former US ambassador, is leading the delegation. Wright resigned from the US army at the beginning of the war against Iraq in 2003. She is now an anti-war activist and a member of CODEPINK.
On Sunday afternoon, Wright told a press conference in Islamabad that "We came from the US for this historic march against drone attacks. We also went to the places in US from where the drones are operated and we registered our protest. We are also protesting US war policies and we are telling you that American people are also against these attacks," she said.

Ann Wright and Imran Khan speak at a press conference in Islamabad

She added that the US is violating the sovereignty of Pakistan by carrying out drone strikes. "The U.S. president has a hit list on his desk and he looks at it every day to know who will be killed in Pakistan. This is criminal... We believe that travel warning is issued because the US government does not want us to see what they are doing. We believe the President of the US is killing innocent people in Pakistan that is wrong... We as Americans stand up against our government and you [have to] stand up against yours," Wright said.
There are still some doubts about whether or not the march will take place. The Pakistan Taliban, which initially opposed the march, now says it will protect it. But military commanders and politicians are jittery and may yet try to stop it.
Starting from Islamabad, the march is due to pass through Balkasar, Talagang and Mianwali, reaching DI Khan on 6 October. On 7 October the participants will gather in Tank and then will move towards South Waziristan where a public meeting will be held at Kot Kai. According to Imran Khan, the Mahsud, Burki and Bhittani tribes of Waziristan have agreed to provide security to the participants of the rally.

More details emerge on Khan's anti-drone march

Pakistani politician and former cricketer Imran Khan  announced this week that the anti-drone march into South Waziristan - expected to attract up to 100,000 participants - will take place on 6-7 October. Khan confirmed that foreign activists will accompany the marchers, including British film maker and activist Carol Grayson. Other people slated to attend include Cherie Blair's sister Lauren Booth, representatives of the London-based Reprieve organisation led by Clive Stafford Smith and members of the American human rights organisation Code Pink.
Khan said the march would leave from Islamabad and reach South Waziristan on 7 October after an overnight stay at Dera Ismail Khan. He said that more than three million people had been displaced because of military operations in the tribal areas and that a planned Pakistan Army operation into North Waziristan would bring more disasters. He claimed that 12 drone attacks had taken place within 24 hours last week, a figure that has not been confirmed by any other source.
How such a large march - much of it will be vehicle-borne - will be catered for in the remote tribal areas is unclear, but Khan remains optimistic and support for the initiative is growing. However, cynics in Pakistan are suggesting that Khan knows the march will never take place because of the impending action by the Pakistan military and that he is simply seeking to garner as much publicity as possible.

UK campaigner to join Waziristan anti-drone march

Carol Grayson                                        pic: CAAB

A British filmaker and campaigner, Carol Grayson, will travel to South Waziristan later this month to take part in a peace march calling for an end to drone strikes and organised by former cricketer and leader of the Tehreek-e-Insaf party, Imran Khan.
The march has already created a stir, with the Pakistan Taliban having threatened to kill Khan - and then withdrawing the threat.
Grayson, who has campaigned to expose the infected blood scandal of the 1970-80s and has also helped to make a film about a notorious incident in Iraq in which a US Army helicopter killed eight men, including two Reuters journalists, in 2007, told the Drone Wars UK website that she refuses to support "the US and British state-sanctioned terror of targeted killing by drone, being used in the so-called 'war on terror' which frequently annihilates civilians in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan".
She said she had been invited to join the march into one of the most dangerous areas in Pakistan by Imran Khan: "I will be joining a peace march to Waziristan with international media, human rights activists and anti-war protesters in solidarity with drone victims. I plan to publicly disassociate, ditch and disown any connection to those drones manufactured as remote control killing machines operated out of airbases in the US and soon the UK."
She said that she did not think the march was a gimmick and revealed that Imran Khan had met with tribal leaders this week who are supportive of the march. An anti-drone protest will take place in Bradford, Yorkshire - in advance of the Wazirstan march - on 14 September.

Pakistan anti-drone campaign loses momentum

The Islamabad-based Conflict Monitoring Center, which monitors drone attacks and anti-state insurgencies in South Asia, notes in its latest report that the CIA has only carried out four attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas in September, killing 22 and injuring 9 others - a substantial reduction on  the same month last year.
Most of those killed, it says, were unknown suspected militants, but they also included al-Qaeda's operational chief in Pakistan, Abu Hafs al-Shahri and Haleemullah, a deputy to the Mullah Nazir faction of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan.
The CMC - which says it is independent, but does not reveal the source of its funding - says the number of attacks in the first month that General David Petraeus has been in charge of the CIA - he took up office on 6 September - was particularly low, although overall figures for 2011 are also lower than in previous years.
The figures show that in the first nine months of 2011 there were 66 drone attacks, killing around 515 people. The CMC argues that there is a punitive element to the drone campaign and that attacks are not solely motivated by the aim of killing militants: "United States uses this lethal weapon for its punitive approach towards Pakistan." It claims that a particularly brutal attack on 17 March this year, in which 40 tribesmen attending a tribal jirga were killed, was a revenge attack for the detention of CIA contractor Raymond Davis.
The CMC report also notes: "The CIA has carried out a drone attack after every high level meeting between Pakistani and American officials during the year 2011". Not sure if this argument can be verified, when there have been so many attacks, but clearly there is a perception in Pakistan that this is happening.
Interestingly, the report notes that following the reduction in the number of drone attacks over this summer, the protest movement in Pakistan has lost its momentum. "No significant public protest was observed during the month of September 2011. Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf – a political party led by veteran cricketer Imran Khan- had started sit-ins (Dharna) against drone attacks in May and June but during previous two months, the party has not organized any protest in this regard. In Pakistan’s National Assembly, the issue of drone attacks was raised by parliamentarians a few months back however, after the reduction in number of drone attacks, the issue is no more of prime attention of the parliamentarians."